VARDAMAN VIRTUAL FORESTRY COMPANY

The Most Direct Link to Knowledge Workers in the Southeast Forest Economy

WINNING CASH PRIZES OR MAKING OUR HONOR ROLL BY THINNING PLANTATIONS

Our announcement of the “Honor Roll of Plantation Thinning Wizards” stated that the men who have proved their ability and willingness to thin plantations selectively add value to every plantation they thin.  If you didn’t understand why they are so valuable (or why this operation is so vitally important to your profit), we ask you to consider these facts about the trees in a typical plantation at age 25:

Surprised at the huge difference quality makes when a tree gets big enough for sawtimber?  Most people are.  Big pulpwood-quality trees are more valuable per cord because they are cheaper to log, but the difference is small.  The main reason they sell for more than small trees is simply because they contain more cubic feet of wood.  In a plantation, all trees are nearly equal in height; the big differences are in volume, which in turn is mainly due to differences in diameters.  Since the area of a circle depends on the square of its radius, its percentage increase from a one-inch increase in radius gets smaller with each increase.  Thus it’s 44% from 5” to 6”, 36% from 6” to 7”, and 31% from 7” to 8”.  You will have more pulpwood-quality timber to sell each year because of growth, but the percentage increase gets smaller.  And don’t forget: it takes about five years to put on an inch of radius.

The big value increases come when the trees grow large enough to produce more valuable products like lumber.  Then if the tree is straight and free of defect, the volume will be calculated in board feet, not cubic feet, and customers will pay much more for them to build houses.  The transition in value may occur at 9”, 10”, or 11” in different markets in SE U.S., but is completed everywhere by 12”.

Selective Thinning vs. Row Thinning or Basal Area Thinning

Now you can see what a disaster row thinning usually causes.  Removing every 3^rd, 4^th, or 5^th row causes the sale of 1/3, 1/4, or 1/5 of your sawtimber-quality trees at pulpwood-quality prices.  Failing to remove each pulpwood-quality tree consigns its share of your growing space to low-profit activity.  But the main disaster occurs in the reduction of value in the final crop, usually only ten years off.

Recently a veteran forester-timberbuyer asked to be considered for our Honor Roll because, although he uses a variation of row thinning, he also uses a prism to assure "that I leave on each acre the basal area required by the landowner."  To evaluate his declaration, look again at our sample measurements, which were made in the center of each one-acre block.  Plots 2 and 26 (1/40-acre each) contain only five trees each, and seven of these ten are pulpwood-quality.  Do you believe him?  Or want him operating in your stand?

Every forester seeking to produce Powerhouse Plantations (our name for big earners) selects trees to be removed in a thinning with his eyes fixed on future values.  Every tree left after thinning must be of sawtimber-quality; no growing space must be occupied by junk.

The sample-plot measurements in our article at http://….. were made in a typical 14-year-old plantation, and yours is probably quite similar.  Our forester first marked for cutting all pulpwood-quality trees, and since the stand was still too dense to allow adequate growing space, he also marked enough sawtimber-quality trees starting with the smallest.  We’d love to show you one of the thinning operations on the ground.  If this is not convenient, you can get an idea of what one looks like by studying the 1997 and 1998 photos of LA87040MMB in East Feliciana Parish, LA.  Click on http://……..

Loggers on our Honor Roll have demonstrated their ability and willingness to remove the marked trees with virtually no damage to the others.  We just began listing them, so there are now only two, but they are everywhere and can be found with diligent inquiry.  We’ll be glad to help you.